Student Debt

President Obama gave personal testimony on the experience of carrying burdensome college loans today, drawing a chorus of “amens” from a student audience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In a pitch for his latest legislative priority, Obama cited statistics about the rising cost of higher education but also got rather personal with the crowd of university students. “I didn't just read about this,” Obama said. “I didn't just get a policy briefing on this.

Sarah Luna wants to buy a home in up-and-coming northeast Los Angeles before it's too late. At 31, she has a master's degree and earns more than $70,000 as a court reporter and freelance editor. She daydreams about trading the Glendale apartment she shares for a little condo, maybe in Echo Park or Highland Park. Just one thing holds her back: The $700 she's paid every month since 2008, after she graduated from the University of Southern California - with $75,000 in student debt.

Student-loan debt is pushing an increasing number of young people and their parents toward bankruptcy, according to a survey released Tuesday. More than four-fifths of bankruptcy attorneys say they've seen a notable jump in the number of potential clients with student-loan debt in the last few years, with nearly half the lawyers reporting a significant increase in such cases, according to the survey by the National Assn. of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. Nearly one-quarter of the attorneys surveyed say the number of potential student-loan clients have risen 50% to 100%, while another 39% of lawyers report spikes of 25% to 50%. Student debt is rising for obvious reasons: steadily spiraling college costs, financial-aid cutbacks at public universities and a stubbornly weak economy that's making it difficult for graduates to find jobs.

Dozens of students rallied at a meeting of the California State University governing board Wednesday, chanting and hoisting signs that urged the chancellor and trustees to rollback “success fees” that are raising costs on many campuses. More than 100 students marched in front of the police-guarded entrance of the chancellor's Long Beach office shouting, “We got 99 problems and student debt is one,” and “No cuts, no fees, education should be free.” Campuses in San Diego and Fullerton recently joined nine others in enacting the success fees to help pay for more classes, faculty hiring, counseling and other services.

Looming student debt could hamper future economic growth as young people tamp down on spending and borrowing in the years to come. Compared with counterparts not saddled with student loans, these young workers are less likely to take out mortgages or car loans, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It's a potentially worrying sign that these workers may be less optimistic about their future earning potential because of the millstone of student loans. Last year, 43% of 25-year-olds had incurred at least some student debt, up from 25% in 2003, the study said.

The share of American households affected by student debt has more than doubled in the last two decades, soaring from 9% in 1989 to a record of nearly one in five in 2010. The 19% of households weighed down by school loans is higher even than 2007, when 15% owed money for their education, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data . Young people are especially hard hit, as are poorer Americans. Among households headed by someone younger than age 35, four in 10 have student debt on the books.

VACAVILLE, Calif. - His jaw clenched beneath a blue surgeon's mask, Opanin Gyaami jerks his right arm and pulls out a prize: the decayed tooth of patient Larry Butler, also known as state prison inmate J22312. By the time he is done, Gyaami's smock and mask are spotted with the inmate's blood. He gently pats Butler on the shoulder and wishes him well. The 71-year-old dentist reports to the state prison in Vacaville day after day, long past retirement age. He wishes he could have hung up his drill and forceps years ago, but he's still paying off a student loan.

NEW YORK -- Like most medical students, Michael Gott has a lot of student debt. Unlike most medical students, his family possesses the baseball that Yankees slugger Lou Gehrig hit for a home run during the 1928 World Series. Not for long, though, because Gott's mother is selling the ball to help pay off her son's loans. By early Friday, bidding for the famous ball had reached more than $33,000, but Hunt Auctions of Exton, Penn., which is handling the sale, expects to fetch $100,000 to $200,000 for the ball, which flew into the bleachers on Oct. 5, 1928, in the second game of the series.

The student-loan market is not in a bubble and going into debt to pay for college is still worth it, according to a new report. But those are the rare bits of good news in the otherwise dispiriting report on students' escalating college debt. While concluding that diplomas are worth the money, the study by Wells Fargo economists found that the payoff may not come for years because graduates are squeezed by several factors. Tuition costs are rising faster than incomes. Graduates are having trouble finding solid jobs.

Sarah Luna wants to buy a home in up-and-coming northeast Los Angeles before it's too late. At 31, she has a master's degree and earns more than $70,000 as a court reporter and freelance editor. She daydreams about trading the Glendale apartment she shares for a little condo, maybe in Echo Park or Highland Park. Just one thing holds her back: The $700 she's paid every month since 2008, after she graduated from the University of Southern California - with $75,000 in student debt.

Dozens of students rallied at a meeting of the California State University governing board Wednesday, chanting and hoisting signs that urged the chancellor and trustees to roll back "success fees" that are raising costs on many campuses. More than 100 students marched in front of the police-guarded entrance of the chancellor's Long Beach office shouting, "We got 99 problems and student debt is one," and "No cuts, no fees, education should be free. " Campuses in San Diego and Fullerton recently joined nine others in enacting the fees to help pay for more classes, faculty hiring, counseling and other services.

Dashiell and Marya Talbot thought that their most pressing financial problem was the five-figure student loan debt that seemed to make home buying an impossibility. Then they learned that Marya was pregnant. The Los Angeles couple, both in their 30s, suddenly had a lot more doubt about their plans. Should they dip into savings to get rid of their debt? And were there things the Talbots - he's a lawyer, she's a costumer - hadn't considered yet? "It seems like the student loan debt is going to be with you for life," said Dashiell Talbot, who prefers the name Dash.

WASHINGTON - Parents, grandparents and young adults know the problem only too well: Heavy student-debt loads, persistent employment troubles stemming from the recession, plus newly toughened mortgage underwriting standards are all standing in the way of vast numbers of potential first-time home buyers in their 20s and 30s. But are there effective techniques that family members, friends, even employers can use to bridge the generational gap by...

Re "Deep in student debt," Opinion, Feb. 10 Sarah Amandolare is troubled by "gapping" - colleges' practice of admitting students without awarding enough financial aid to make a school affordable. The vast majority of the nation's colleges have no other option. Out of thousands of U.S. colleges and universities, fewer than 70 claim they will meet a student's full financial need. Many of these schools have hefty endowment funds. Others use less-generous estimates of what the student can pay, which often means a gap between what the college and the family think is affordable.

Colleague Don Lee wrote a piece in Tuesday's L.A. Times about a new Pew Research Center study, "The Rising Cost of Not Going to College ," that finds getting a college education is still the best path to a financially successful life, the current economy notwithstanding. Of course, no one - especially poll takers, who measure the present and the past - can predict the future. But the Pew findings are pretty compelling, even as they obscure a more significant point: The benefits of a higher education aren't limited to a paycheck.

Last October, in between arguments over the debt ceiling, the federal government somehow found time to send me an email. My student loan payment was 70 days past due, the message read, so the government had negatively reported me to each major credit bureau and would continue to report me until my account was brought current. I'm betting the government sent out a lot of those letters to people like me: college graduates from middle-class families who didn't qualify for much in the way of scholarship aid and had parents who couldn't afford to pay for their schooling.

College graduation is typically a time to tally accomplishments and to look ahead. But for many graduates, it is also a time to tally student loans and figure out how to repay them. About two-thirds of college graduates have some student loans to pay off, and their average debt is about $25,000 to $28,700, according to estimates by education experts and organizations. (About 10% of those with loans owe more than $50,000 or so.) Many college seniors say they had not thought much about their debt until they received summaries just before graduation.

WASHINGTON - The verdict was nearly unanimous at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill: The new federal "ability to repay" and "qualified mortgage" regulations that took effect Jan. 10 will make obtaining credit tougher, not easier, this year, and potentially force large numbers of creditworthy home buyers to defer or cancel their plans. What nobody addressed at the hearing, though, was the elephant in the room: OK, we've got a problem. But what, if anything, can buyers who find it difficult to meet the new standards do about it?

Online programs at USC and UCLA were among those receiving top ratings in a new report to be released Wednesday by U.S. News & World Report, which also found that highly ranked programs are more common at established public universities than at for-profit online providers. The University of Southern California's online graduate computer information technology program was top-ranked nationally, the same position it held in last year's listing, while UCLA had the second-best ranked online graduate engineering program, moving up from 11th last year.